The bitter waters of the Adriatic

The Adriatic, once called the Gulf of Venice, is an important frontier. Once it was the demarcation line between Nato and the Socialist states of Yugoslavia and Albania. Now it is a polluted, protective moat for Europe, and sometimes a watery grave for unlucky illegal migrants looking for a way into the wealthy West.

A SPEEDBOAT sank off the Albanian coast on 9 January this year: 21 illegal would-be immigrants drowned. Yet in fact fewer migrants risk crossing the Adriatic these days, since the drive to leave the Balkans has become less intense as the conflicts in Yugoslavia have been replaced by postwar problems.

The Regina Pacis centre, established in 1997, is a massive concrete building behind barbed wire on a beach near the village of San Foca, 20km from the baroque city of Lecce in southern Puglia, Italy. It offers temporary shelter and is the only place where the state has delegated management to Catholic diocesan authorities. The director, Don Cesare Lodeserto, explains that migration routes have changed in the past few years. Most illegal immigrants now sail from Libya and come ashore in Sicily; others make their way to the Adriatic ports of Bari or Brindisi in trucks or containers shipped from Turkey.

The centre-left government in Italy introduced closed detention centres in 1998 and Regina Pacis eventually accepted this radical change of status. But Don Cesare speaks angrily of the 2002 Bossi-Fini law, which made conditions for migrants harder: “The law should reconcile reception with legality, but they are making illegal entry a crime. It is a mistake to bring in laws against immigration: immigrants will keep on coming.”

About 250 foreigners are held in the centre for a maximum of 60 days, under the system of administrative detention. They must be identified by their national authorities within that time and may be deported once it has expired. According to Italian interior ministry statistics in 2002, 36.6% of the detainees held in reception centres in Italy were deported. Most people held here are illegal immigrants who came ashore in Sicily. The conditions in this centre are better than in others, but Don Cesare’s management has been criticised by the far left: he is involved in a court case over a group who tried to escape in 2002.